Please refer to the main Clannad page for a plot description. I'll just write my positives and negatives for the series here.
Positives:
- The comedy in Clannad was one of the best things about it for me, especially any Sunohara scene and also anything involving Akio Furukawa (particularly the scenes with his wife). I was only disappointed there wasn't more of it, I think Sunohara could've had his own show :P
- The episodes that focus mainly on the theatre club were interesting and felt as if they were going somewhere; although again for me there wasn't enough focus on this in the series
- The music was good, especially the ending song. However, one piece of music gets repeatedly played whenever something remotely sad or depressing happens, so for me it lost its impact and instead became a signal that something melodramatic was about to be shoehorned into the episode. That got tiresome...
Negatives:
- Personal choice, but I really didn't like the character designs of the female characters. The way their eyes were drawn just made them look a bit soulless so it was difficult to take any sort of 'emotional scene' seriously
- Speaking of 'emotional scenes,' the melodrama in this was about as subtle as a wrecking ball. I enjoy drama but Clannad just became more and more ridiculous as it turned into a competition of 'Which girl can have the most disastrous back story that has nothing to do with what's going on, doesn't progress the story and will be forgotten about in the course of the next few episodes??'
It just became silly and made it quite difficult for me to keep wanting to watch. The Kotomi and Fuko arcs are especially guilty of this.
- Fuko-chan. Bloody Fuko-chan. So very very annoying.
Conclusion:
As you can probably tell from my score I didn't really enjoy this :P It had potential with the comedy and theatre club angle but just got lost in a sea of impossible-situation-overdramatic-ness. I think it could've been done far better.
Though from what I've heard, if you have enjoyed other series from Key such as Kanon and Air then you'll probably like this.
Thanks for reading!
